Screen Space Spherical Harmonic Occlusion

Abstract

In this paper we present a new algorithm for real-time directional occlusion sampling. We combine the real-time capabilities of Screen Space Ambient Occlusion (SSAO) with the Spherical Harmonics (SH) representation of local directional occlusion. SH are well established and used in modern off-line rendering implementations such as PantaRay [PFHA10]. Through our combination we are able to transfer a method for realistic local directional occlusion effects from offline rendering to dynamic real-time applications. These local occlusion effects react to the environmental lighting situation and lead to dynamic and colored local occlusion shadows while only generating a small computational overhead compared to SSAO. Unlike other real-time directional occlusion algorithms such as Screen Space Direction Occlusion (SSDO) [RGS09] our occlusion sampling is separated from the actual lighting process and therefore can be easily integrated in existing SH lighting methods such as Irradiance Volumes [GSHG98]. We furthermore extend our algorithm to include first bounce indirect illumination effects.